DmC director says western developers put visuals ahead of gameplay

Western developers start with visuals and get around to gameplay afterwards, DmC’s Japanese director Hideaki Itsuno believes.

Speaking to Siliconera, Itsuno said Capcom Japan’s collaboration with Ninja Theory has highlighted the opposing approaches of Japanese and western development teams.

“Given our experience, it seems like with the west and Ninja Theory they focus on the visuals stuff at the beginning and then build the gameplay on top of that,” he said.

“Whereas at Capcom Japan, we focus on the game logic and getting the systems down in the beginning then we gradually build the visuals on top of that.

“I think this speaks to the differences in the core of how western games are developed compared to games in Japan,” he added, noting that he can’t really speak for other Japanese developers beyond Capcom.

Itsuno said much of Capcom’s feedback to Ninja Theory during DmC’s development has been an attempt to merge the two differing approaches

“We’ve been trying to find a hybrid system where we take a best of both worlds approach. It hasn’t been easy, but I think we’re happy with the results we have,” he said.

Elesewhere in the article, available through the link above, Itsuno said Ninja Theory’s management approach, which empowers individuals in key areas of the game, has been an eye-opener for the schedule-driven Capcom, while producer Motohide Eshiro said Capcom has learned a lot from Ninja Theory’s acclaimed motion capture and animation skills.

DmC is due on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in January; a PC version was mentioned early in proceedings but seems to have fallen off the radar.